What is The Needle?

The changing meanings of The Needle are the inspiration for these pages. Above Alexanderplatz is Berlin's television tower. The Needle surveilled the city during East German times like a threatening eye; then its meaning changed after the Berlin Wall fell. Berliners now think of the tower as a giant disco ball flirting with the city lights––a symbol of sex, electronic music and youth culture. This weekly documents the Berlin Renaissance today, mindful of a dramatic and terrifying history. Berlin is Europe's most exciting city, and The Needle is here to share.

About the Author

Joseph Pearson is a writer, historian and local expert on Berlin, interested in how the past affects present concerns. Born in Canada, he attended a United World College and received his doctorate from Cambridge University, UK. He moved to Berlin from New York City, where he taught at Columbia University, and now lectures on his subject at New York University--Berlin. He writes for the Schaubühne theatre as an essayist, and is completing a contracted book about Berlin today in light of its history. More information can be found in the 'About' section at the top of this page. For professional inquiries please contact: needleberlin [AT] gmail.com OR joseph [AT] cantab.net.

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Anhalter Bahnhof

It’s 1880 and you are in the biggest train station in continental Europe standing under an iron and glass roof of ten thousand square metres.

Your children come here, and theirs too. It’s such a busy place, with trains leaving every three to five minutes, all those 16 million yearly passengers. It is 1930 and a friend travelling from Italy is staying at the Excelsior Hotel, Europe’s largest, across the street. You can get there from the station by way of a tunnel. It’s a great place to relax before going South –you imagine him on the train to Dresden, Prague, Vienna, and then over the Alps. You would like to go too, maybe in a couple years. For now, you like walking through the cathedral space and seeing all those destinations, possibilities.

But you don’t go. Things get worse and your friend does not visit anymore. Your neighbours passed through this station and never returned, they were Jewish and you heard they ended up in a camp in Czechoslovakia. Since 1939, you are a regular on the new North-South S-Bahn. There is talk that Albert Speer would like to turn the station into a swimming pool, for his city Germania. A couple years later, this is not possible.

There are so many holes in the roof, the station is partly bombed out. You cannot take the train very far anymore. Now that the Allies are here, it’s not clear what will happen to a terminus for trains originating in the East and arriving in what they now call the West. You would think the real damage happened during the war, but no. Now, it is 1960 and someone wants the bricks. They take them.

You flew on your last trip South, to Sicily. The train station reminds you of the temples of Agrigento, nestled in overgrown green. Ten people now stand at the bus stop for the M41 bus. Behind what was once the world’s biggest station, there is a playing field, an outdoor concert space, and a few loiterers drinking beer on a park bench.

You look up at the ragged edge of the facade, and the sculptures representing day and night. They hold on to an empty space where the clock once stood.